Red Rowans Part 20

"I am not like other girls, thank you----"

"Do you think I can't see that?" he broke out quite pa.s.sionately.

"Should I be talking to you as I am if you were--why, I can't even speak to you of what some of them are. It is because you are not as other girls----"

"Then you wish me to behave as they do. You are scarcely logical." Her tone was as ice, and, chilling his pa.s.sion, sent him back to his cynicism.

"Logic and love do not generally run in double harness, Miss Carmichael; but if you prefer the former, I am quite prepared to stick to it. Someone wants a wife, someone wants a home. It is a mere case of barter. What can be more natural, sensible----"

"And degrading."

"Pardon me, not always. I will take my own case if you will allow me.

We have touched on it often before. Let us speak frankly now. I need money, not for myself alone; for the property. You have hinted a thousand times that I am a bad landlord; so I am. How can I help it without money?"

"You could be a better landlord than you are."

"If I chose to live on porridge and milk; but I don't choose, and I don't choose to sell. I prefer to stick to champagne and devilled bones, and give up another personal pleasure instead. And you say it is degrading."

"I said nothing of the sort. I spoke of myself. It would degrade me. I do not presume to speak of you."

"But you think it all the same."

"And if I do, what is that to you?" she cried suddenly, in hot anger.

"I do condemn you, if you will have the truth. I think you will deliberately turn your back on the best part of life if you marry for mere comfort--and, what is more, that you will regret it."

"Possibly. I regret most things after a time. Let us wait and see whether you or I find the greatest happiness in life. Only we are not likely to agree even there, for we shall not see the world in the same light."

"Unless High Heaven vouchsafes us another Green Ray," she said coldly.

The allusion aroused all his own vexation with himself, all his impatience at her influence over him. They were pa.s.sing the short cut leading to the Lodge, and he paused.

"I don't think I need intrude on Mrs. Cameron tonight," he said.

"Good-bye, Miss Carmichael." Then suddenly he turned with a smile of infinite grace. "Let us shake hands over it to show there is no ill-feeling. It is my last holiday, remember; and, according to you, I am going into penal servitude for life. But I'll chance my ticket-of-leave. I am generally fairly virtuous when I have enough to eat and drink. And we have had a good time, haven't we?"

"Very," said Marjory. And though he tried hard to get up another thrill as their hands met, he failed utterly. He might have been saying good-bye to his grandmother for all the emotion it roused in him; and as he strode home he scarcely knew if the fact were disconcerting or satisfactory. The latter, in so far that it proved his feeling for Marjory must be of a placid, sentimental form, to which he was unaccustomed. What else could it be in such surroundings, and with a girl who hadn't a notion what love meant?

And Marjory, as she crossed the few yards between her and Mrs.

Cameron's comments, felt vexed that she was not more angry with the culprit. But once again the thought of the St. Christopher, and of Paul's blue, chattering lips, when he had the chills at the Pixie's Lake, came to soften her and make her forget all but admiration and pity.

CHAPTER XI.

Rain! Rain! Rain! One drop chasing the other down the window-pane like boys upon a slide. Beyond them a swaying network of branches rising out of the grey mist-curtain veiling the landscape, and every now and again a wild whirl of wind from the southwest, bringing with it a fiercer patter on the pane. Those who know the West coast of Scotland in the mood with which in nine cases out of ten it welcomes the Sa.s.senach, will need no further description of the general depression and discomfort in Gleneira House a week after Paul had said good-bye to Marjory at the short cut. For he had been right, the deluge had come; and even Mrs. Cameron, going her rounds through byre and barn in pattens, with petticoats high kilted to her knees, shook her head, declaring that if it were not for the promise she would mis...o...b.. that the long-prophesied judgment had overtaken this evil generation. And she had lived in the Glen for fifty years.

Poor Lady George, who had arrived at Gleneira wet, chilled, uncomfortable, yet still prepared to play her role of hostess to perfection, fell a victim to a cold, which, as she complained, put it out of her power to give a good rendering to the part. Since it was manifestly impossible to receive her visitors, arriving in their turn wet, chilled, uncomfortable, with anything like the optimism required, for protestations that Highland rain did no harm, and hot whiskey-and-water did good, were valueless, when you sneezed three times during your remark. If she could only have gone to bed for one day, there would have been some chance for her; but that was impossible, since nowadays one couldn't have a good old-fashioned cold in one's head without the risk of breaking up one's party from fear of influenza! So she went about in a very smart, short, tweed costume, with gaiters, and affected a sort of forced indifference even when the cook, imported at fabulous wages, gave up her place on the third day, saying she could not live in a shower bath, and was not accustomed to a Zoological Gardens in the larder; when the upper housemaid gave warning because hot water was not laid on to the top of the house, and the kitchenmaid refused to make the porridge for the half-dozen Highland la.s.sies, who did all the work, on the ground that no self-respecting girl would encourage others in such barbarous habits.

But all this, thank heaven! was on the other side of the swing door; still, though the guests could scarcely give warning, matters were not much brighter in, what servants call, collectively, the dining-room.

Breakfast was a G.o.dsend, for a judicious admixture of scones and jams, and a little dexterous manipulation of the time at which people were expected to come down, made it last till eleven at the earliest. And then the hall was a providence. Large, and low, and comfortable, with a blazing fire, and two doors, where the ladies could linger and talk bravely of going out. Looking like it, also, in tweeds even shorter and nattier than Lady George's, yet for all that succ.u.mbing after a time to the impossibility of holding up an umbrella in such a gale of wind, joined to gentle doubts as to whether a waterproof was waterproof. Then there was lunch. But it was after lunch, when people had manifestly over-eaten themselves, that the real strain of the day began. So that the Reverend James Gillespie, coming to call, despite the pouring rain, as in duty bound, was delighted with the warmth of his reception, and Lady George, making the most of the pleasing novelty, reverted unconsciously to a part suitable to the occasion.

"Dear me!" she said plaintively; "this is very distressing! Imagine, my dear Mrs. Woodward! Mr. Gillespie a.s.sures me that there is no church in the Glen, only a schoolhouse. Paul, dear, how came you never to mention this, you bad boy?"

Paul, who, after sending the most enthusiastic men forth on what he knew must be a fruitless quest after grouse, was devoting himself to the ladies, and in consequence felt unutterably bored, as he always did when on duty, turned on his sister captiously:

"I thought you would have remembered the fact. I did, and you are older than I am. Why, you used always to cry--just like Blazes does--if my mother wouldn't let you open the picture papers during service."

Lady George bridled up. It was so thoughtless of Paul, bringing all the disagreeables in life into one sentence; and reminiscences of that sort were so unnecessary, for everyone knew that even the best childhood could not stand the light of adult memory.

"But surely there was a talk, even then, of a more suitable building.

I suppose it fell through. High time, is it not, dear Mrs. Woodward, for our absentee landlord to repair his neglect?"

"The farm-steadings have first claim to repair, I'm afraid, Blanche,"

returned Paul, refusing his part. "The church will have to stand over as a luxury."

Lady George, even in her indignation, hastened to cover the imprudence, for the Woodwards were distinctly high.

"Not a bit of it, Paul! We will all set to work at once, Mr.

Gillespie, and see what can be done--won't we, dear Mrs. Woodward?"

"I would suggest writing to the Bishop as the first step," said the Reverend James, modestly.

"And then a fancy fair," continued Lady George.

"Delightful! a fancy fair, by all means," echoed an elderly schoolfellow of Blanche's, who had been invited on the express understanding that she was to do the flowers and second all suggestions.

"I trust you will have nothing of the kind, Blanche," put in Paul, with unusual irritation. "I hate charitable pocket-picking. I beg your pardon for the crude expression, Miss Woodward, but I have some excuse. On one occasion in India I was set on by every lady in the station, with the result that I found twenty-five penwipers of sorts in my pocket when I got home."

"Twenty-five, that was a large number," said Alice, stifling a yawn.

"What did you do with them?"

"Put them away in lavender as keepsakes, of course."

"My dear Paul," put in his sister, hurriedly, recognising his unsafe mood. "We do things differently in England. We do not set on young men; we do not have----"

"A superfluity of penwipers," interrupted her brother, becoming utterly exasperated; but as he looked out of the window he saw something which made him sit down again beside Alice Woodward, and devote himself to her amus.e.m.e.nt. Yet it was a sight which with most men would have had exactly the opposite effect, for it was a glimpse of a well-known figure battling with the wind and the rain along the ferry road. But Paul Macleod had made up his mind; besides, rather to his own surprise, the past few days had brought him very little of the restless desire to be with Marjory, which he had expected from his previous experiences in love. It was evidently a sentimental attack, unreal, fanciful, Arcadian, like the episode in which it had arisen.

And yet a remark of his sister's at afternoon tea set him suddenly in arms.

"Mr. Gillespie told me there was a girl staying at the Camerons', Paul, who was a sort of governess, or going to be one. And I thought--if she hadn't a dreadful accent, or anything of that sort, you know, of having her in the mornings for the children."

"Miss Carmichael, Blanche," he broke in, at a white heat, "is a very charming girl, and I was going to ask you to call upon her, as soon as the weather allowed of it. I have seen a good deal of her during the last few weeks, and should like you to know her."

Really, in his present mood, Paul was almost as bad as a dynamite bomb, or a high-pressure boiler in the back kitchen! Still, mindful of her sisterly devotion, Lady George covered his indiscretion gracefully.

"Oh, she is that sort of person, is she? I must have misunderstood Mr.

Gillespie, and I will call at once, for it is so pleasant, isn't it, Alice dear, for girls to have companions."

And yet, as she spoke, she told herself that this was an explanation of her brother's patience in solitude, and that it would be far safer, considering what Paul was, to keep an eye on this possible flirtation.

Meanwhile, the offender felt a kind of shock at the possibilities her easy acquiescence opened up. He had been telling himself, with a certain satisfaction, that the idyll was over, leaving both him and her little the worse for it; and now, apparently, he was to have an opportunity of comparing the girl he fancied, and the girl he meant to marry, side by side. It was scarcely a pleasing prospect, and the knowledge of this made him once more return to his set purpose of fostering some kind of sentiment towards Alice Woodward. But the fates were against him. Lord George, coming in wet, but lively, from a const.i.tutional, began enthusiastically, between his drainings of the teapot, in search of something to drink, on the charms of a girl he had met on the road. "A real Highland girl," continued the amiable idiot, regardless of his wife's storm signals, "with a lot of jolly curly hair: not exactly pretty, you know, but fresh as a daisy, bright as a bee. I couldn't help thinking, you know, how much better you would all feel, Blanche, if you went out for a blow instead of sticking at home."